The present invention relates to a system for supervising and guiding persons in constructions such as buildings, underground markets, underground substations and tunnels, and more particularly to a system for supervising workers in a construction who are engaged in various work such as inspection, maintenance and repair, and informing them of guided instructions adequate for emegency escape upon a disaster such as fire, flood and earthquake.
Heretofore, in order to give persons in a construction information for emergency escape upon a disaster such as fire, there are provided guide lamps for indicating emergency exists and ladders and loudspeakers for announcing the guide information. However, such a system is not sufficient for guiding effectively and positively the persons into safe places. This is mainly due to the fact that operators of a central control room responsible for providing the guide information are unaware of the location of the various persons. In order to mitigate the above drawbacks, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 98,199/76 there has been proposed a system for providing the guide information in accordance with a distribution of persons in a building, which distribution can be obtained by processing electric signals supplied from a number of contact switches arranged over the floor of the building in a matrix form. However, in such a system, a number of switches have to be arranged over the floor, and thus it is practically difficult to apply such a system to existing buildings. Moreover, the switches are subjected to wear and cannot be used for a long time. Moreover, there has been proposed a security system comprising sensors for detecting the passage of persons through entrances and exits. However, in such a system it is entirely impossible to recognize the locations of the persons.
In the constructions such as underground substations and tunnels in which there are a relatively small number of workers, there is usually provided a system for guiding the workers into safe places by means of a wireless communication system such as a combination of antenna cable and transceivers or portable communication devices, and a wire communication system such as a local telephone system. In such a system, a central control room can know positions of workers in the construction only by receiving messages from the workers. Therefore, if a worker is in a situation where he cannot send a message, the central control room cannot recognize him.